Disco Pigs
Enda Walsh and Throwing Shade Productions deserve a far bigger audience than the six of us who graced the opening night performance of Disco Pigs. A succinct but harsh little play, it requires a tight, energetic, ‘kick arse’ performance that leaves the audience – and the actors – decidedly fazed, and Andrew Langcake’s production does just that.
It’s fast, hard-hitting, decidedly disturbing – and a tribute to actors Courtney Powell and Jeff Hampson who take on the roles of two unlikely (and not very likeable) characters.
Born on the same day in the same hospital ward in Cork, and growing up in adjoining houses, Runt and Pig have become isolates in an inter-dependent world, where they have even created their own dialect. Self-sufficient, they have raced through life and shunning other personal contact.
Runt: … It all begin when the baby Pig and the baby Runt state through their baby eyes, you see… from that moment on, we become one. And we need no one else. Nobody.
But, they are turning 17 and Runt is beginning to think a little more about the future, while Pig has realised that he has begun to think of Runt as a little more than a ‘mate’.
Runt: What’s the colour of love Pig? …
Pig: Jesus Runt. You could read a thousand think books and never know the answer to that quiz.
Runt: It’d be a good one to know, ah?
Pig: It’d be brilliant, Runt. It’s around here somewhere.
Nevertheless, their ‘celebrating’ is as racy as everything they do. They don’t pay their bus fares, they pub crawl, drink heavily, dance hard, and eventually hit the classy new disco where the night becomes even more volatile.
Powell and Hampson epitomise the latent energy in these characters, the underlying violence that breaks through too quickly, the rush of adrenalin that pushes them too far, then leaves them clinging to each other in an attempt to revitalise.
As Runt, Powell is tightly strung, high one moment, almost morose the next, but constantly wired for action, almost bouncing Runt into the audience fix them with an ‘I dare you’ glare.
Hampson is equally erratic as Pig. He finds the stark dimensions of the character in unpredictable mood changes, resorting to a physicality that is uncontrolled and dangerous.
Together they make Enda Walsh’s unusual characters weirdly convincing and, though here they are decidedly Irish, the universality that Walsh gives them is scarily believable – and Langcake makes this abundantly clear by using a stark, empty stage and costumes, music and lighting that could be any suburb in any city.
This is a play that more should see, and more should ponder.
Carol Wimmer
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